


Memories Hurt More

by AShortInfinity



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Hurt Steve, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nostalgia, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4218459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AShortInfinity/pseuds/AShortInfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is curious about Steve's interest in the infamous Winter Soldier, but he didn't realize the extent of Steve's interest and what it entailed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories Hurt More

**Author's Note:**

> This is really just a drabble I typed up because I was bored. Enjoy this short lil fic of nothing significant :)

“Hey Steve, can I ask you something?”

Steve looked up from the magazine he had been flipping through. Tony was standing behind the bar, a favorite spot of his, and seemed to be fiddling with something out of Steve’s view. He was curious why Tony would bother asking to ask him something; the man never seemed to show restraint before.

"Go for it,” Steve said amusedly, turning back to his magazine.

“Why does the Winter Soldier mean so much to you?”

A chill shot down Steve’s spine and he froze, staring at his magazine but more so looking past it. There was a long pause, one in which Tony actually bothered glancing up from whatever he was doing to see Steve completely still, completely silent. Did he tug on a nerve? Tony was only curious because he had overheard Natasha and Steve discussing the subject quietly during one of Tony’s parties, and no one missed or neglected his parties without there being a rude interruption by a psycho killer robot or something equally as important and deadly.

And Tony hated not knowing who they were talking about.

“Why do you ask?” Steve asked lowly, as if trying to play it off like he hadn’t spaced out for a solid two to three minutes. Tony shrugged, collecting his drink and walking over to sit across from the Captain.

“I’ve just noticed a great deal of interest in him all of a sudden,” He replied.

Steve watched him sip his whiskey before sighing heavily, leaning back against the couch and discarding the magazine onto the coffee table. He took a moment to collect himself, staring out a window and dragging his hand down his jaw and chin.

“When I first heard about the Winter Soldier, I figured he was just another mercenary, a good one like Romanoff,” Steve began, looking only at his hands in his lap, “At the time, I thought he had killed Fury, so I just wanted revenge, no matter who he was.” He swallowed dryly and his hands started shaking just slightly. He got them under control in a matter of seconds, but Tony had still seen it, making him set his whiskey down. “It turns out that the Winter Soldier is my best friend who I had thought was dead…Bucky Barnes.”

Steve offered a half-hearted smile and began playing with his hands. Tony held back that look of pity from creeping into his eyes as he watched him; he knew what it was like to be looked at with pity, and he would never wish that upon anyone.

"So you’re dead-set on finding Bucky, then?” Tony asked.

Steve nodded. “I’d be out looking right now if I could be of any use to Sam.”

The two sat quietly for a moment, and Tony watched Steve curiously, noticing how he was tense, on edge, and all because he had simply mentioned an old friend. Tony could understand the discomfort in admitting that a friend is actually a mercenary and has been alive/not frozen in ice for a lot longer than Steve has, but he felt as if there were something more. Something Steve wasn’t telling him that was making Steve’s skin crawl and act the way he was right now.

“Tell me about Bucky,” Tony said, attempting to ease Steve and quench his curiosity.

Steve half smiled and hunched over his knees, intertwining his fingers. “Bucky…Bucky is that one person you never forget, no matter how hard you try to. He was my only friend—my only true friend, I should say—that I had pre-serum, even though he could’ve easily had better friends. I was really nothing compared to him. But one thing I know is that he never wanted this life for me. He wanted to…protect me, I guess, from the real world. He always saw me as someone innocent and someone…better than who I actually am. The good thing is that he never treated me any differently when he found out I was Captain America. He…” Steve paused and stared at the coffee table, his eyes glazed over, and finished flatly, “He still pictured me as his little brother.”

Tony studied Steve for a moment, letting this new information sink in. The way he talked about Bucky, it seemed almost as if Steve worshipped the guy, and if Captain America worshipped someone, then they must be pretty damn impressive. But it was more than just fondness of a friend; no, it was the way Steve ended his description that truly peaked Tony’s interest. After running over the words and his tone in his mind, Tony eventually came to one conclusion that he didn’t even think about before he was blurting it out loud.

“You loved him.”

Steve didn’t even flinch. “Of course I did, he was my best friend.”

"Not in the friendship, ‘I love you but no homo man’ kind of way,” Tony corrected, “I mean you actually, honest-to-God, _love_ loved him.”

Slowly, Steve turned his head to look at Tony, his eyes wide just slightly. Was he surprised that Tony had figured that out? Not really; the man was a genius after all. Was he nervous how Tony would take the realization that Steve wasn’t exactly batting for his own team? Just slightly. He knew that in the recent decade, liking one’s own gender or both genders or whoever the hell you wanted was more widely accepted, but he still couldn’t get past the fact that he had grown up believing those types of people were abominations, mentally ill and nothing more than freaks of nature.

“Yes,” Steve all but whispered, looking back down at his hands, which were now shaking and there was no way he could stop them. “Yes, I did love him more than as a friend.”

Tony waited for him to go on, but when he hesitated, he prodded, “What happened?” without thinking about whether or not that might’ve been too personal to ask. They were already in a deep hole, there seemed no point in going back now. Besides, he had never seen Steve like this, and it was probably good that the Captain talked about some things he’d kept bottled up for most of his lifetime.

Steve ran a shaky hand through his hair and replied, “I told him. Bucky was about to be shipped off for war and I thought I was never going to see him again, so I told him how I felt.” The Captain shook his head and stood, walking over to the window and resting his forehead against the glass. He was like this for a moment before continuing, “Bucky said he had suspected for a while, and that he was sorry that he couldn’t feel the same way about me. ‘I wish I could Steve’ he’d said, ‘Because you’re worth more than everyone else in this damn world put together’.”

Steve slammed his fist against the glass and Tony felt it from where he was sitting. He wanted to approach Steve, to comfort him, but he didn’t really know how; he could only imagine how painful it must’ve been for him to put himself out there only to have himself pitied.

“You know, I once asked out one of my professors five years after I was in her class, and she said that she would rather date the janitor than me,” Tony said, walking over to stand next to him, looking out the window. “And I was even rich too.”

Steve smirked. “Maybe the janitor was actually really attractive.”

“But I was rich!” Tony shook his head, smiling now that Steve was. There was a moment of quiet and Tony added, “I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but I do know how shitty being pitied can feel. However, I think there are worse ways something like that could’ve gone. I mean, Bucky could’ve stopped talking to you, or turned you over to the police or something. They did that back then, right?”

Steve glanced at Tony and held his gaze for a moment before looking down at his feet. “Yea, something like that.”

Tony nodded and slapped his shoulder. “So be glad you were in love with a good guy. And know that I am at your disposal if you ever need help tracking him.”

Steve looked up at him. “Tony, I wouldn’t ask you to—”

“You’re not asking me, I’m offering,” Tony interrupted with a smile. He walked back and grabbed his drink, downing it in one go. “That’s what friends do, you know.”

“You consider us friends?” Steve asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tony shrugged, drumming his fingers on his glass. He risked a glance back towards the Captain, only to see him leaning against the window, bathed in sunlight like America’s Angel or something else as equally cheesy and cliché. It was no secret to Tony that he admired the Captain as more than just someone who has his back in a battle, but he never could’ve imagined that there might be the slightest chance that Steve could feel the same way about him.

“Something like that,” Tony grinned, winking at him, and retreating from the room after setting his glass down at his bar.

Steve watched Stark leave, confused by the man as he always was, but left in high spirits for once. He had never told anyone about Bucky in the manner that he had just told Tony, but the two seemed to be bonding more recently than ever, and that was never a bad thing. He trusted Tony to keep what he had just heard to himself, and keep this secret side of Steve a secret still.

The Captain resumed his place on the couch and continued reading his magazine, but he wasn’t really reading it; more or less, he was thinking about how Tony had been looking at him, how he had kept his snapping remarks to a minimum and seemed to only want to help Steve.

Steve’s heart began to thud a little faster and he closed his magazine, his eyes wide.

 _This can’t be happening again_ , he thought in a panic.

He overheard talking coming from the other room, and Tony’s distinct laughter.

His heartbeat accelerated at the sound of that.

_…fuck._


End file.
